Party
chairman Grant Shapps joined the cronies backing Mrs Miller by saying yesterday she had accepted the recommendations of the Commons Standards Committee and should be left to get on with her job.

It followed David Cameron insisting she had apologised so there was nothing more to say.

Despite this support, former Tory chairman Lord Tebbit joined the chorus of disapproval. He said “arrogant”
Tory Mrs Miller
had to go, and attacked “the spectre of her flaunting her twisting and bending of the rules for personal gain”.

Lord
Tebbit said: “Most members of the Commons must have hoped that the scandals over fiddled expenses had at least calmed down, even if not gone away.

“Now Mrs Miller has not just re-ignited the flames but, by the arrogance of her response
to the scandal, poured petrol on the fire.”

There
has been widespread fury over Mrs Miller’s behaviour. Three-quarters of
the public surveyed by pollster Survation said Mr Cameron was wrong to back her.

Some 78% questioned said she should be kicked out of the Cabinet, 66% said she should lose powers over press regulation and 68% said she should be sacked as the MP for Basingstoke.

And a shock 82% of Tory supporters thought she should be removed as Culture Secretary.

Despite
backing his Cabinet colleague, Welfare Secretary Mr Duncan Smith said the PM needed to consider the harm it was doing the Government by refusing to sack Mrs Miller. Mr Duncan Smith suggested the attacks were all part of a “witch hunt” against her.

He said her critics were “bitter” over reforms she had championed and were out to get her.

Mr
Duncan Smith said: “My view generally is that I’m supportive of Maria because I think if we’re not careful, we end up in a witch hunt of somebody.” He added: “I think she has done a very good job in a very difficult set of circumstances with the Leveson Inquiry, which has stirred up a lot of media antipathy to her.

“And
also the gay marriage stuff – there’s a lot of Conservatives out there who perhaps weren’t necessarily in support of it all so feel rather bitter about that, so in a sense, she is also receiving some of that as part of this process.” But he admitted the fallout may force the PM to overhaul the way MPs are allowed to sit in judgement over their own expenses scandals.

Mr Shapps had refused to back Mrs Miller four times when questioned on the BBC but in a later interview yesterday he had changed his tune, saying she should be given the chance to continue in her Cabinet role.

“She
has accepted fully the recommendations of the committee, without reservation and she should be able to get on with the job. And the Prime
Minister’s said that’s what he wants her to do,” he said.

Mr
Cameron said on Friday: “What happened is Maria Miller was actually cleared of the original charge made against her. It was found she had made mistakes, she accepted that, repaid the money, she apologised unreservedly to the House of Commons, so I think we should leave it there.”

The Commons Standards Committee last week controversially cleared Mrs Miller of deliberately fleecing the taxpayer by over claiming mortgage expenses.

An
independent investigation called for her to hand back around £45,000 in
overpayments. But the committee slashed the amount she had to repay to just £5,800.

She was forced to make a humiliating Commons apology for her behaviour during the investigation but the PM has stuck by her.

However
her position in the Cabinet was last night under further attack after Labour claimed she may have broken the ministerial code by failing to rein in an aide who allegedly “threatened” a newspaper to drop reports about her expenses.

The Shadow House of Commons Leader, Angela Eagle, wrote to Sir Jeremy Heywood, the country’s most senior civil servant, demanding an investigation into the claims.

Former
anti-sleaze MP Martin Bell joined those calling for a shake-up of the standards system. He said: “The House of Commons, then as now, is incapable of regulating itself and that’s been proven yet again.”